


Little brother

by kmary



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Demonic Possession, Gen, Ghosts, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmary/pseuds/kmary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft explains how he came to suspect Sherlock is possessed by a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little brother

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever venture in writing fanfiction for BBC Sherlock and it's basically a Mycroft monologue. For the [Spookylock Halloween Challenge.](http://spookylock.tumblr.com/post/62956120120/hello-ghouls-and-boos-the-month-of-halloween-is) I'll post the link to the companion art that inspired me to write this in the end notes.  
> I'll probably regret not having this beta-read (yet).

I worry about him. Constantly.

Sherlock was very sweet as a child. My earliest memory of him is his contagious laughter. He was always kind-hearted and didn't have an ounce of selfishness or stubbornness in him. He was, contrary to popular belief, not particularly clever. As little boys go, I would say he was as close to average you could come; he pulled the hair of the little girls in kindergarten and played war games with the other boys. As he got older he played a lot of sports and got average grades in school. In class he was more interested in the teacher than in the lessons.

I didn't have very high expectations of him. No-one in our family did. But he was still the same sweet boy as he had ever been and we all loved him very dearly. I imagined for him a future with a job he had worked hard for, perhaps in a small office or in a shop, and a little family of his own; a loving wife, children as sweet and cheerful as he was himself.

This, however, as you know, has remained nothing more than a pipe dream. Once Sherlock went to university, over the course of a single term he changed and came back home for the holidays as quite a different young man from what he had been.

Where Sherlock had been naturally amiable he was now hard pressed to be so. If he would ever find something amusing he would not laugh, but merely allow himself a quick smile and then be all seriousness again. There was a superiority in him, a sort of arrogance and condescension for those he deemed beneath him, which seemed to be just about everyone but himself. He was prone to black moods, and was easily bored, as if the comforts of home did not appeal to him any more. Worst of all; it became apparent that he'd been taking drugs. With him moving from home and growing up I wouldn't have been surprised to learn he had been drinking excessively or experimenting with cannabis. But cocaine... 

Mother was appalled, of course, but when Sherlock refused to sober up she, instead of fighting, turned a blind eye. I alone tried to convince Sherlock to do the right thing. I cut down on his allowance. I even scared his suppliers to stop accepting his business. It didn't stop Sherlock from acquiring his drugs, but it did make him resent me. He was now nothing like the sweet, good-natured boy I knew to be my baby brother. 

By the second year of Uni he disappeared off the face of the earth. Needless to say we were all in an uproar. We looked for him, had the police involved, I even went as far as transferring to another department just to... Well. Need to know, I suppose.. For all we tried and every rock we turned, I never found a trace of him. I've never been more worried in my life.

Seventeen months later Sherlock came back to us, thin as a wire, ragged and wild eyed. I asked him where he'd been, naturally, but he was loathe to give a straight answer. As far as I've been able to find out, he spent a great deal of time in Asia, learning some obscure form of martial arts, using drugs and busking with a violin that I've never seen in my life. 

Having him back seemed like a blessing at the start, but soon we could no longer overlook his continuous drug abuse and shockingly bad behaviour. Mother would not do anything about it, so I did. I sent Sherlock to rehabilitate, and when he escaped the establishment I made sure to find him and send him back. I took his violin hostage, refused to let him see mother while not sober, and he retaliated by leaving for the United States. Then something changed. I know now that is when he met Mrs Hudson.

When Sherlock finally returned he was clean and getting better. He started to build his life around his detective business, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I suppose I could be wrong in still worrying about Sherlock. People, as a rule, are prone to change as they grow up, and there is no denying that the use of heavy drugs is a given to guarantee it. But how does a boy not even out of his teens manage to travel to the opposite end of the world without any means of paying, or a proper passport, and while there, successfully hide from highly trained special agents? How does a boy with no previous interest or predisposition for sciences suddenly become expertly knowledgeable in chemistry? How does a boy, who never even looked at a musical instrument, in barely a year's time become a virtuoso on the violin? 

All this, while simultaneously taking a drug known to be as destructive as it is addictive?

I hesitate to mention this, but as you are the closest thing Sherlock is ever going to have as a friend, I feel it is my duty to fully reveal my findings to you.

I have spent long hours pondering the mystery of what happened to my little brother. I have consulted psychologists, drug-addiction specialists, musical teachers and scientists. I have talked to Sherlock's doctors and former classmates at University. I sent specialists to Asia and all over the world, privately funded, obviously, to find out where Sherlock spent his missing time. None of my research came up with a single answer.

In a desperate moment I went to see a person with, what you could call, a special gift. For a small sum of money I finally got my answer, and what is worse; a confirmation of my fears. My little brother was not himself. He was literally an entirely different person.

Humbug, you say. Nothing but a con-artist taking advantage of a distraught mind. Perhaps it is so. Logically I ought to discard the idea entirely. But if it is true...

My baby brother was a sweet, innocent boy. He had friends and a family that adored him. He was never going to be a scientist or a philosopher, but he had dreams and a future life that he is now never going to experience. If it is the drugs that have changed him, then there is nothing more to do about it. Sherlock is clean, and he has a support network of sorts to ensure he stays that way. However, if there is some other thing that changed him before the drugs came into his life, then that thing owes me, owes Sherlock his life back.

The only trouble is, of course, I can not prove anything. If I could, then I would already have done something to help my brother. I would have found the means and made sure that whatever it is that has taken possession of my brother would be banished from this world and the next.

Regretfully, there is nothing else left for me to do, but worry. And I do worry. 

Constantly.

**Author's Note:**

> The companion art which inspired the fic can be found on [my tumblr post](http://kmaryarty.tumblr.com/post/65534193299/for-the-spookylock-halloween-challenge-inspired-by) for the Spookylock challenge.


End file.
